No Further Action

by TL Dyer

  ‘If your partner wishes to press charges. But, Paula, you know you might not be detained for long, don’t you? Overnight at most. Maybe not even that.’

  ‘Yes,’ she answers. But I’m having trouble reading what her intentions are, what she thinks a few hours away from the man will achieve.

  ‘If this is something that has happened before, or happens regularly for you, we can refer you to someone who’ll help. You understand what I’m saying?’ I lower my voice. ‘You and your son have the right to feel safe in your own home.’

  She doesn’t answer, but gets up, slides open a drawer on the wardrobe and takes out a grey hoodie which she tugs on over her head. As she does, her t-shirt rides up and I catch again the twisted mosaic imprinted over the pale skin, on her hips, and on her waist that’s barely there. I drop my eyes away and get up from the bed.

  ‘I need to talk to my partner. Can you stay in here a moment?’

  I’m out of the room before she gives an answer. And at the top of the stairs I grip the bannister, sucking in a few deep breaths to dowse the burning in my chest.

  I’ve seen the damage domestic abuse does time and again, on the body, on the mind. But today it makes me feel sick to my stomach. As I descend the stairs and my partner’s voice drifts out of the open sitting-room door, calm, authoritative, reasoning with the unreasonable man, I don’t know whether I want to yell or throw up.

  Chapter 17

  ‘Keep on like this and I’ll think you’re trying to make a play for me, boys.’

  Custody Sergeant Chris Lewis greets us with a lopsided smile and his usual chirpy humour as we return to the front desk after Paula’s been booked in for assault and taken to a cell. The man deserves a knighthood. In the eighteen months or so he’s filled this position, I’ve never heard him complain. There are others in the job who think that CS is a cushy number for lazy bastards – stuck behind a desk all day, drinking coffee, having a natter and tapping at a keyboard. But they’re the ones who’ve never actually done it.

  There’s little easy about maintaining authority and remaining respectful in the face of every piece of litter we bring in from the street. Taking the full obscene vitriol that spills from some of their mouths is one thing, cleaning the shit they leave in the cell as a parting gift another. And not just shit, but every bodily fluid imaginable. Maybe there are moments of light now and then, but for the most part it’s a vile business. A fair few of the clientele who come in are pissed, off their skulls on something, or at their most enraged for what they perceive as maltreatment by the law. In other words, they’re not exactly at their best. For those on the desk it’s a constant battering of the nerves, the patience, and the sense of humour. Lewis is a saint for not letting any of that get to him, or at least for not letting it show if it does. Maybe he just knows that if you give these bastards a hint of a crack in your armour, they’ll dig in and tear it wide open with grubby fingers.

  ‘Streets will be empty at this rate, the way you lot are going at it today.’ The overhead light shines off Lewis’s smooth hairless scalp, blue eyes glimmering with an untarnished wickedness despite his mock grievances. ‘Hope you’re coming off shift soon. I’m running out of rooms to put them in.’

  ‘Three quarters of an hour ago actually,’ Smithy says, over a yawn and a stretch. ‘I’m knackered.’

  ‘Come on, boys,’ I say, ‘where’s your dedication?’

  Lewis snorts a laugh. ‘It died with Roy Castle and his sodding Record Breakers.’

  ‘Who?’ Smithy asks, hands clasped at the back of his head, polo shirt riding up to show off his washboard.

  Lewis and I exchange a glance. ‘Never mind, Junior,’ he says, yanking up his trousers under his overhanging gut. ‘Go on, fuck off and finish your paperwork. Some of us got another five hours to go yet.’

  ‘Well, if you insist, Skipper,’ Smithy says, departing. But I hang back at the desk.

  ‘Listen, keep an eye on her, Sarge, would you?’

  ‘Trying to tell me how to do my job, Fuller?’

  ‘Maybe someone can have a word with her? Give her some contacts, that kind of thing?’

  ‘Course we can, mate. I’ll get Sarah to have a word.’

  ‘Thanks, I appreciate it.’ I tap at the counter and wink my gratitude before I leave. I’m at the door when Lewis calls out, ‘Hey, Fuller.’

  When I turn, his grin’s enough to broadside the darkest of moods.

  ‘Another sterling job. You’re my hero, you know that, don’t you, son?’

  The tension in my shoulders eases when I laugh. ‘Fuck off, you nonce.’

  *

  Forty minutes later, once I’ve typed up the day’s notes and I’m out of the uniform, I feel better. I pull the keys for the Focus from my jeans pocket and press the fob as I cross the car park, throw my kit bag in the boot. In the driver’s seat, I’m flipping open the glove compartment to drop in my warrant card and wallet when I remember something. In my wallet, tucked into the front pouch, is the business card I put there yesterday.

  Dr Tricia Summers BVSc MRCVS Veterinary Practitioner, Bridge Road, Usk

  I’m taking the phone from my shirt pocket when it vibrates. I clock the time, feeling uneasy even before I remember why. 7.20. The school. Dan’s parents evening. Shit.

  Swiping the screen to answer with one hand, I pull the seatbelt over and click it into place with the other. ‘Sorry, Ange, I got caught up. You still there?’

  I throw the wallet and Tricia’s business card to the passenger seat and start the car. But Ange is telling me not to bother.

  ‘Right. Sorry, love, I should have called earlier. See you at home, then. Want me to pick anything up?’

  The line’s dead before I get to the end of the question. I take the phone from my ear and stare at it. ‘Balls.’

  Propping my elbow on the door frame, I blow out a sigh. Across the car park, Jonesy’s dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, carrying his rucksack hooked over his shoulder. He salutes my way, which I return, and heads to where his missus waits in the Fiesta across the street. She smiles when he gets in the passenger seat, and they kiss a greeting like the newlyweds they still are. Give them a year, I think, even as I hate myself for the cynicism. Jonesy’s a good kid. Devoted. Maybe things will work out alright for him. Maybe he’ll never be a grumpy old weathered sod before the age of forty. Maybe Mrs Jonesy will be the understanding kind, happy to play second fiddle to the job.

  Tricia’s card lies face up on the seat she was sitting in only twenty-four hours ago. I pick it up and stare at it. Then I’m punching her number into my phone, and dithering over it for a long minute before reasoning that if it was a new mate I’d just met, a bloke, I wouldn’t need to think it over so much. I tap out a message.

  This class of yours still on for tonight?

  Shit, how to sign off? I go with Steve, then delete it. Maybe she knows a few Steves.

  PC Steve Fuller. Delete. Far too formal.

  Steve F. Delete. Sounds like a rapper or an anonymous witness.

  Steve the copper. I hit send before I can change my mind, and five minutes later I’m pulling over into the layby on the edge of the bypass to read her reply.

  Sure is, Fred Astaire. Eight sharp. Above Jade House, Bridge Road. Bring sparkles. See you then. Tricia the vet.

  Tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, I estimate that if I go straight there I should get there in time. But then there’s Ange. I’m only five minutes from home, but given my tardiness once again, I can already imagine how that’ll go. Her disappointment and anger distilled into loaded silences. My aching limbs and mental exhaustion cut into a short fuse. Just the thought of it has me digging my thumb and finger into the corners of my closed eyes to ease the sting there.

  I drop my hand and tap out a message.

  Called back to the office. Some meeting I forgot about. Text you later. Grab a takeaway on the way back if you like.

  I stare at the message before sending it. She won’t be sorry I’m
not coming home yet. And it’s not as if this will be a regular event, not once Tricia clocks my two left feet. So this could be my one and only chance to find out more about Anna and the people she bothered with.

  At the end of the bypass, I get in the inside lane to take the roundabout and return in the same direction I’ve come from. With my thumb, I hit send on the message for Ange.

  *

  The aroma of fried noodles and freshly roasted meat from the Chinese is torture. My stomach growls and mouth floods with saliva at the thought. The bass-heavy thrumming of the music from the room above though, the one I feel through the wooden step and up through my shoes to my feet, is far less enticing.

  I’ve stopped halfway up the dim stairwell, bare grey walls closing in on either side. This isn’t me. This place, this kind of after-hours socialising. Salsa, for god’s sake? What the hell would Ange say after she’d finished laughing long enough – being as I’m always the one busy at the bar or hiding out in the gents when the prospect of a slow dance comes around at the end of the night. This isn’t my thing at all.

  I turn on the stairs, but haven’t descended far when the music gets louder, clearer, something fast and repetitive, before a door slams shut, muffling it again. The prickle at my collar tells me I’m no longer alone.

  Tricia stands at the top step, hands on the hips of an orange and yellow sequin dress scooping low to her cleavage, and with tassels that sparkle where they fall above her knees. The sides of her hair are pinned at the back of her head, the rest of it rests in soft sandy curls around her collarbone. I should say something. I should probably say something.

  ‘Just in time,’ she says, ignoring the fact that I was about to leave. ‘I’ve got the perfect partner for you.’

  ‘Actually, I—’

  She disappears back inside the room I can’t see from here. The blast of music which is thrust into the stairwell this time is brief. A taunt. A tease. A dare. One that’s out of my hands now she’s already seen me. Turning away will make me look more of a fool than if I stay. I’d never be able to face her again. And right now she’s the strongest link I have to Anna. A source I can’t afford to screw up.

  My feet are heavy the rest of the way up the stairs, even as I tell myself with each step to get a grip. I’ve faced worse than this in my career, why should this be so hard? And anyway, it’s meant to be fun. I think.

  ‘Steve, you absolute frigging plonker,’ I mutter to myself, standing the other side of the door to where the music’s coming from, and echoing the sentiments of half a dozen of my colleagues’ voices in my head. I can just picture Dalston’s face, his nervous concern. Russell asking me if I’ve gone soft. Smithy second-guessing my motives and turning them into something salacious. Jonesy’s forced indifference – ‘Whatever floats your boat, fella.’ Peghead backing off, putting a few more not-altogether-unwelcome metres between us. Sacha telling me to ignore all the cavemen and go for it. ‘Good on you, mate,’ she’d say, with a punch to my arm or a ruffle of my thinning hair. She’s the one I listen to when I suck in a breath and open the door.

  Chapter 18

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I see what you mean.’

  ‘Oh. Aren’t you supposed to encourage me? Humour me, at least?’

  ‘More importantly, how do you feel?’

  ‘How do I feel? Ask me tomorrow.’

  ‘Thought coppers were meant to be fit.’

  ‘You thought right. They are meant to be.’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Let me buy you a drink, for coming tonight. I know you didn’t really want to.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that.’

  ‘I’d like to. Just give me a sec to get out of this Quality Street wrapper.’

  ‘You’re not keeping it on?’

  ‘In the Dog and Duck? I don’t think so. I’ll be two minutes.’

  Tricia swipes her backpack from under a chair and disappears down the hall.

  The room is silent with the music off, the fluorescent lights up, and everyone gone. I go over to the window, poke my fingers between the blinds and flip open the slats. Outside, I see two of the women giggling as they practice what they’ve learned tonight, Salsa-stepping down the street to a parked Nissan Juke. They wave to Jeff, one of only three of us brave males, who’s pulling his Welsh Water company van away from the kerbside. He toots on the horn and they cheer. The other brave male is Clive, a fifty-plus married man and full-time carer for his disabled wife. Nice bloke. They both are. Though Jeff, I feel, is a single on the scout for more than a dance partner. Poor Clive, on the other hand, seemed only too pleased to be out of the house. Wonder what they all think I’m doing here. No one’s asked what I do for a living yet, which is something. But give them time.

  ‘Right, Fred Astaire. Let’s go.’

  My dance partner for the evening has changed into jeans, a pink and white hooded Superdry sweater, and trainers. She’s unpinned her hair, which is now tucked behind her ears. But her eyelids and cheekbones still shimmer with the bronze glitter I first noticed when we were stood with only a foot between us and she was telling me to put my hands on her.

  ‘You still think it’s a good idea to call me that?’ I ask, as we leave the hall and she turns off the lights and locks up.

  ‘Fred Astaire? Don’t see why not. You told me I should be encouraging you.’

  We head down the narrow staircase and out into the street. The smell from the Chinese has been lodged in my nose all night, and my stomach’s still whining about not having eaten in hours. ‘So where’s this pub then? Local?’

  ‘Worry not about your weary feet, Fred, it’s not far,’ she says, hooking her arm through mine like we’ve always known each other. Maybe that’s what partnering someone in something like a dance does. Fast tracks you to familiarity. I can still feel the sequins of her dress under my palm, her fingers in mine, her toes under the sole of my shoe as I flounder my way through the songs.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ she asks, as we enter the pub.

  ‘How are your feet?’

  A mock glare is her answer as we approach the bar. ‘There must be a law against that sort of thing.’

  ‘Well I did caution you.’

  ‘What you having?’

  ‘I’ll have a Beck’s Blue, Ginger, thanks.’

  ‘Make that two, please,’ she says to the barman.

  We choose a pair of bench seats facing each other, away from the door. It’s gone eight on a Friday night and the place is starting to fill. I wonder if I should text Ange, but then Tricia says, ‘We could have done with Anna in the practice this afternoon.’ She pours her Beck’s from the bottle to the glass. ‘Shit day. Really shit day.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ I say, thinking of Right Guard, his companion gone; of Paula and the same house she’ll return to tomorrow, the same life. I run my thumb down the condensation on the cold bottle. It slides to the bottom where it soaks into the beer mat.

  ‘God, listen to me moaning,’ she mumbles, the glass to her lips.

  ‘No, go on.’ I push my drink to one side and fold my arms on the table, but she shakes her head.

  ‘Forget it. How was your day, Steve?’

  I puff out a laugh. ‘Next question.’

  ‘Of course. I shouldn’t ask. Confidentiality and all that.’

  ‘Not at all. Just wouldn’t want to bore you to tears.’

  ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t.’

  ‘Anyway,’ I say, reaching for the bottle and twisting it between my fingers on the table, ‘tell me about Anna. So you two got along?’

  ‘Didn’t we just. She was an absolute godsend at the practice and I took full advantage. It wasn’t going through the motions with Anna, like it can be with some of them. She had a real instinct for the animals.’

  ‘So her parents said,’ I say, though it’s not her parents I’m thinking of, but the way their daughter had calmed when we spoke about the practice, her studies, my pat
hetic jokes about the life and death of a goldfish.

  ‘Of course, she was a teenager too,’ Tricia’s saying. ‘So she had her moments.’

  ‘Course.’

  ‘But I couldn’t complain about her. For the most part, she was a real gem. Her work ethic was astounding. For an apprentice assistant, I mean.’

  ‘Because she loved it.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Tricia smiles, her head tilting to one side, gauging me with either admiration or amusement, I’m not sure which. ‘She loved it, she really did. That makes all the difference.’

  ‘I’m sure it does. And she had her friends, right? A lot of support.’

  ‘You’d assume so, from the amount of kids at the funeral.’

  ‘Did she talk about them?’

  Tricia looks over towards the bar to find her answer, gaze getting lost to the same place it did yesterday at the rugby club. There’s a deep sadness about it. Not about one thing in particular perhaps, but more like a universal grief for the things in this world she wished she didn’t know about; a sensitivity to the things she couldn’t do anything to make better. I get that. I absolutely get that. But where she feels sadness, I feel frustration.

  ‘She spoke about her friends sometimes, but not in great detail. Other things kept her preoccupied.’

  ‘Other things?’

  ‘Well, it was clear there was a boy on the agenda.’ Tricia rolls her eyes. But that doesn’t tell me much.

  ‘Trouble?’ I ask, and have to wait for her to swallow a mouthful of ale before she answers.

  ‘Put it this way, I sure as hell didn’t have the same grief when I was her age. But I didn’t have her looks either. They weren’t exactly flocking to my door.’

  ‘I don’t believe that.’

  The dead-eyed glare Tricia gives me is the same kind Sergeant Roberts doles out when a request for overtime or leave is put in. ‘Trust me, Officer,’ she says, ‘I’m telling the honest-to-goodness truth.’

  ‘So you’re saying Anna had a boyfriend? Her parents didn’t say.’